Preval v. Reno

• Decision Date: 22 June 1999
• Docket Number: No. Civ.A. 99-413-AM.,Civ.A. 99-413-AM.
• Citation: 57 F.Supp.2d 307
• Parties: Jude A. PREVAL, Plaintiff, v. Janet RENO, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Virginia

57 F.Supp.2d 307

Jude A. PREVAL, Plaintiff, v. Janet RENO, et al., Defendants.

No. Civ.A. 99-413-AM.

United States District Court, E.D. Virginia, Alexandria Division.

June 22, 1999.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Jude A. Preval, Farmville, VA, pro se.

Janet Reno, Attorney General of the United States, Washington, D.C., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

ELLIS, District Judge.

Plaintiff, a detainee of the Immigration and Naturalization Service who is being held at Piedmont Regional Jail in Virginia, filed this pro se action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging that his constitutional rights have been violated. Upon review of the complaint, it does not appear that plaintiff has exhausted the administrative remedies available to him concerning the claims he raises here. This alone is sufficient to warrant dismissal pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a).¹ In any event, a screening of the complaint, as required by 28 U.S.C. § 1915A,² compels the conclusion that plaintiff's claims are frivolous and therefore the complaint must be dismissed. See also 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(c)(2).³

I.

Plaintiff alleges that while detained at Piedmont Regional Jail, he has been subjected to "loud noise, constant lighting, coldness (air conditioning)," an outbreak of "scabies" and a stench within the jail. He claims these conditions violate his Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. He further alleges that his rights were violated when he was assaulted by another prisoner. Prison officials, he alleges, failed to protect him from the assault and then provided him with inadequate medical care afterwards. Named as defendants are Janet Reno, the Attorney General of the United States, Raymond Smith, regional supervisor for the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Piedmont Regional Jail, Lewis Barlow, superintendent of PRJ, and Edward I. Gordon, chief physician at PRJ.

II.

As an initial matter, plaintiff has not alleged a sufficient connection between any of the defendants and the conditions of which he complains to sustain a § 1983 action against them. In § 1983 actions, "[l]iability will only lie where it is affirmatively shown that the official charged acted personally in the deprivation of the plaintiff's rights." Vinnedge v. Gibbs, 550 F.2d 926, 928 (4th Cir.1977). Moreover, under § 1983, plaintiff cannot hold a defendant liable for his subordinate's actions under a theory of respondeat superior. Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Services, 436 U.S. 6589, 694, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978); Slakan v. Porter, 737 F.2d 368, 372 (4th Cir.1984), cert. denied, 470 U.S. 1035, 105 S.Ct. 1413, 84 L.Ed.2d 796 (1985).

Plaintiff appears to have named defendants Reno and Smith solely because he is an INS detainee. He has not alleged that either defendant was personally involved in subjecting him to the conditions he complains of at PRJ. The same is true of defendants Barlow and Gordon; both have been sued solely because of their supervisory positions, and neither is personally implicated in any of plaintiff's claims. Moreover, the Piedmont Regional Jail is not a "person," and therefore not amenable to suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. See Will v. Michigan Department of State Police, 491 U.S. 58, 109 S.Ct. 2304, 105 L.Ed.2d 45 (1989); McCoy v. Chesapeake Correctional Center, 788 F.Supp. 890 (1992).

To be sure, in pro se actions, naming incorrect defendants is not generally fatal to the suit; such plaintiffs typically are given an opportunity to particularize and amend. See Coleman v. Peyton, 340 F.2d 603, 604 (4th Cir.1965). Yet, in this case, the claims are neither inarticulate nor fatally unspecific; rather, they are adequately clear and specific, but clearly do not rise to the level of constitutional violations under any of the circumstances alleged.⁴ As such, they cannot be saved by amendment.

III.

In reviewing a complaint pursuant to § 1915A, courts should dismiss prisoner complaints that are frivolous, malicious or fail to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. 28 U.S.C. § 1915A(b)(1). A claim is frivolous if it "lacks an arguable basis in law or in fact." Neitzke v. Williams, 490 U.S. 319, 325, 109 S.Ct. 1827, 104 L.Ed.2d 338 (1989). A complaint states no claim upon which relief can be granted if "it is clear that no relief could be granted under any set of facts that could be proved consistent with the allegations." Hishon v. King & Spalding, 467 U.S. 69, 73, 104 S.Ct. 2229, 81 L.Ed.2d 59 (1984). It is through the lens of these general standards that the complaint must be examined.

IV.

As with any case under § 1983, the initial step in evaluating the claims is "to identify the specific constitutional right allegedly infringed." Albright v. Oliver, 510 U.S. 266, 270, 114 S.Ct. 807, 127 L.Ed.2d 114 (1994). Preval asserts that the conditions about which he complains violate his right under the Eighth Amendment to remain free of "cruel and unusual punishment." U.S. Const. amend VIII. Yet, Preval is not a convicted criminal serving out his sentence; he is an INS detainee. As such, his rights are more akin to those of a pretrial detainee than a prisoner.⁵ Thus, as with a pretrial detainee, plaintiff's claims fall under the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause, not the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. See City of Revere v. Massachusetts, 463 U.S. 239, 103 S.Ct. 2979, 77 L.Ed.2d 605 (1983); Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979).

Given this, Preval's claims must be evaluated under a standard at least as stringent as that of the Eighth Amendment. Loe v. Armistead, 582 F.2d 1291, 1294 (4th Cir.1978), cert. denied, 446 U.S. 928, 100 S.Ct. 1865, 64 L.Ed.2d 281 (1980). "While a convicted prisoner is entitled to protection only against `cruel and unusual' punishment, a pretrial detainee, not yet found guilty of any crime, may not be subjected to punishment of any description." Hill v. Nicodemus, 979 F.2d 987, 991 (4th Cir.1992) (citing City of Revere, 463 U.S. at 244-45, 103 S.Ct. 2979). Accordingly, plaintiff's claims must be evaluated to determine if the treatment he received at PRJ can be considered "punishment." Measured against this standard, plaintiff's claims fail.

A. Conditions of Confinement

Clearly, "not every inconvenience encountered during pre-trial detention amounts to `punishment' in the constitutional sense." Martin v. Gentile, 849 F.2d 863, 870 (4th Cir.1988). For the conditions Preval cites to amount to punishment, they either must be imposed with an expressed intent to punish or must not be "reasonably related to a legitimate nonpunitive governmental objective, in which case an intent to punish may be inferred." Id. In other words, "if a particular condition or restriction of pretrial detention is reasonably related to a legitimate governmental objective, it does not, without more amount to `punishment.'" Bell, 441 U.S. at 539, 99 S.Ct. 1861. This requires an element of intent on the part of prison officials that equates to the deliberate indifference standard of Eighth Amendment claims. Loe, supra. And, "deliberate indifference entails something more than mere negligence [but] is satisfied by something less than acts or omissions for the very purpose of causing harm or with knowledge that harm will result." Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 835, 114 S.Ct. 1970, 128 L.Ed.2d 811 (1994). As with an Eighth Amendment claim, "the protections of the Due Process Clause, whether procedural or substantive, are just not triggered by lack of due care by prison officials." Davidson v. Cannon, 474 U.S. 344, 348, 106 S.Ct. 668, 88 L.Ed.2d 677 (1986).

Here, the loud noise, constant light, bad odor and low room temperature plaintiff cites, while undoubtedly unpleasant, cannot be characterized as "punishment" unrelated to plaintiff's detention. Nothing in the allegations suggests any basis for inferring that these conditions are the result of an intent to punish or indeed anything other than normal conditions found in any jail. Plaintiff's claims regarding these conditions are therefore frivolous. And, as previously noted, it is clear the named defendants had no knowledge of the complained of conditions, much less culpable minds to keep plaintiff imprisoned under those conditions. In short, plaintiff's allegations raise no concerns of ill intent or deliberate indifference by any prison official at PRJ.

B. Failure to Protect

Plaintiff also claims that the prison staff failed to protect him from an assault by another inmate. For a claim of this nature, plaintiff must satisfy two requirements. First, "the inmate must show that he was incarcerated under conditions posing a substantial risk of serious harm." Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 834, 114 S.Ct. 1970, 128 L.Ed.2d 811 (1994). Second, as with the conditions of confinement claim, the inmate must show that prison officials acted with a "`deliberate indifference' to inmate health and safety." Id. at 837, 114 S.Ct. 1970. See also, Westmoreland v. Brown, 883 F.Supp. 67, 73-4 (E.D.Va.1995) (applying Farmer standard to pretrial detainee's failure to protect claim).

The allegations here do not and could not satisfy these requirements. Instead, they describe an essentially spontaneous altercation among inmates. Specifically, plaintiff states that on Feb. 24, 1999, he argued with an inmate over seating in front of the cell block television. Plaintiff then went back to his cell, but the inmate with whom he argued followed him and the two fought until jail officials intervened several minutes later. There is no allegation that any jail officials, much less the named defendants, were aware of the potential for the specific altercation before it took place, nor that they should have been aware of the circumstances surrounding this particular fight. Because prison officials clearly were unaware of the risk to plaintiff under the circumstances alleged, the claim fails against the named defendants, as...